The partnership meetings became a weekly fixture faster than I expected, Tuesdays at ten, Damian's office on the fortieth floor overlooking a stretch of harbor I was slowly learning to see as beautiful again instead of merely familiar, the water catching light in a way I used to walk past without noticing, back when noticing things had felt like a luxury I couldn't afford.
His office smelled faintly of cedar and fresh paper, and there was always a second cup of tea waiting on the table by the time I arrived, exactly the way I took it, a small detail I hadn't mentioned to him even once, which meant someone on his staff had been asked to notice, or he'd noticed himself and simply never said so.
"You've read the whole revised contract," he said, the third week, glancing up from his own copy
